In instances where a patient must be transported, and especially in emergency medical care situations, patients must typically be loaded into an emergency transport vehicle, transported from an emergency site (e.g., accident scene) to a medical facility (e.g., hospital or acute care facility), medically treated in route to the medical facility, and unloaded from the emergency transport vehicle for further medical treatment at the medical facility. In some situations, patients may be transported by more than one emergency transport vehicle in route to a medical facility. For example, a patient may be transported by a helicopter from an emergency site, then transferred to an ambulance for ground transportation to a medical facility.
As speed is of the essence in such situations, the loading, transporting, treating and unloading of the patient during this period should be conducted efficiently and effectively, and otherwise accommodate patient positioning for medical treatment. This is especially true in instances where an emergency pick-up site is in a remote area and/or medical evacuation situation. In this regard, the patient loading system and transport device should also be reliable and easy to operate.
In relation to the noted considerations, emergency transport vehicles typically present significant space constraints. This is particularly true for emergency transport vehicles having only side access ports for patient loading/unloading. In such arrangements, a patient litter may be raised and advanced into a side access port and translated from an orientation that is transverse to a longitudinal axis of the emergency transport vehicle (e.g., orthogonal) to an orientation that is aligned with the longitudinal axis. As may be appreciated, the performance of such translation in a small space, and in rapid and safe manner, presents significant challenges for medical personnel.